Meghan Markle omits dad from story about mom ‘juggling’ to raise her

In the latest episode of her Archetypes podcast, Meghan Markle shares a sweet moment with her mother, Doria Ragland, and lavishes praise on her while painting a picture of Ragland as a burdened single mother who was solely responsible for her upbringing.

Anyone who has read about Meghan’s childhood in Los Angeles, however, might wonder about the idea that Ragland was on her own to raise the future TV actor who married Prince Harry. Meghan’s statement — “She took care of me and the house and herself. She was juggling so much.” — is at odds with the many accounts showing that Meghan’s father, Thomas Markle, was very much involved in co-parenting her.

From around the age of 9 and until Meghan left for college, the future Duchess of Sussex lived “full-time” with her father, a lighting designer for “General Hospital,” “Married With Children” and other shows, according to Vanity Fair and the book, “Revenge: Meghan, Harry, and the War Between the Windsors” by author Tom Bower.

Thomas Markle and others say he footed the bill for her private-school education and often was responsible for transporting her to and from school. Meghan also once talked fondly about how her father brought her with him to the studios after school, so she could do her homework while he finished work.

It’s not surprising that Meghan would want to avoid any mention of Thomas Markle in the episode that dropped Tuesday. She famously cut off contact with him after his scandalous last-minute exit from her 2018 royal wedding, and his upsetting need to criticize her in interviews with the U.K. tabloids. Supporters of Meghan see the retired lighting designer as an opportunist who continues to publicly hurt his daughter in his quest for fame.

Moreover, the topic of the episode for Meghan’s female-centered podcast is “Good Wife/Bad Wife, Good Mom/Bad Mom.” It focuses on the roles that women — not men — are expected to play in their homes and families.

Still, Meghan gives her husband, Prince Harry, a shout-out for pitching in to help in the mornings, when she’s “juggling” to get her children, Archie, 3, and Lillibet, 1, awake, dressed, fed and, in Archie’s case, off to pre-school.

In her podcast, Meghan gives no such credit to her father, even though she happily did so in the past. In certain ways, Meghan is like other famous people, particularly in Hollywood, who may be given to omitting uncomfortable details, glossing over timelines and embellishing or even fabricating events in their lives as they build their public personas. Right now, Meghan doesn’t want Thomas Markle anywhere near her public persona.

It’s clear from the things she and others have said, that her father played a key role in shaping her view of herself, and that Doria Ragland got lots of help from him in raising her.

After Thomas Markle and Ragland split up after two years of marriage, “they remained unified in the one child they shared — co-parenting Meghan without much friction, sharing custody and celebrating holidays together,” wrote Meghan’s friendly biographers, Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand, in their book “Finding Freedom.”

While the book asserts that both parents contributed to Meghan’s private-school education, it also said that Thomas Markle played a critical role in Meghan’s development as a feminist. This book and Bower’s “Revenge” describe Thomas Markle as the architect of his daughter’s first important moment of activism at age 11.

That’s when she said she became angry and hurt about seeing a Procter and Gamble TV ad for dishwashing liquid that had the sexist tagline: “Women all over America are fighting greasy pots and pans.” Both books said Thomas Markle encouraged her to write a letter of protest to P&G’s president and letters to then-First Lady Hillary Clinton and Nickelodeon anchor Linda Ellerbee. Bower also said that Thomas Markle used his contacts in Hollywood to get Meghan on Ellerbee’s kids’ news TV show.

After Meghan’s parents broke up, she divided her time between the two, Bower said. On the days when Thomas Markle worked an 18-hour shift, Ragland and her mother cared for Meghan. On the alternate days, Thomas collected Meghan from school, and looked after her every weekend.

Scobie and Durand quoted Ragland’s brother as saying her mother is probably the single most influential person in Meghan’s life. The authors said the mother-daughter bond was forged in the duchess’s childhood. They did yoga together, rode bikes, spent time at home preparing home-cooked dinners and traveling.

“Mother and daughter were always very open with each other, and that did not change once Meghan became an adult,” Scobie and Durand wrote.

Bower is far less generous in assessing Ragland’s role in doing the heavy-lifting as a parent. He wrote that Ragland, in 1986, found it “too difficult” to care for her 5-year-old daughter, so Meghan would spend her afternoons after school with her friend ,Ninaki “Nikki” Priddy, or with her father.

Just before Meghan turned 9 in 1990, Ragland announced that she would need to be away for weeks at a time as she traveled around the country to start a new clothing and jewelry business, Bower reported. At that point, Thomas agreed to take full responsibility for their daughter, and Meghan moved permanently into his home, a large converted barn “in a stylish neighborhood close to Hollywood Boulevard.”

While Meghan lived “full-time” with Thomas Markle for nearly 10 years, according to Vanity Fair and Bower, the father established “a pleasant routine” for the two of them. He dropped Meghan off at school, then at the end of the afternoon, “would either collect her or send a limousine to bring her to the studio while he finished work.”

Before Meghan fell out with her father, she described all the juggling he did to take care of her. In a Father’s Day post on her former website, The Tig, Meghan said she spent her weekends with her father, when he “religiously” took her to Saturday ballet and tap classes even after he worked more than 75 hours during the week. She said they’d always celebrate with a restaurant lunch of club sandwiches and fruit smoothies.

Most of all, Thomas Markle encouraged her interest in acting, volunteering to erect professional lighting for her school productions and giving her advice on how to move on stage or perform for the camera, she and others say. He also took her to the Emmy Awards to walk the red carpet when he was nominated for best lighting director.

“The blood, sweat and tears this man (who came from so little in a small town of Pennsylvania) invested in my future so I could grow up to have so much,” Meghan began in a post on The Tig. “He is the person who believed in this grand dream of mine well before I could see it as a possibility.”

In the latest episode of her Archetypes podcast, Meghan Markle shares a sweet moment with her mother, Doria Ragland, and lavishes praise on her while painting a picture of Ragland as a burdened single mother who was solely responsible for her upbringing.

Anyone who has read about Meghan’s childhood in Los Angeles, however, might wonder about the idea that Ragland was on her own to raise the future TV actor who married Prince Harry. Meghan’s statement — “She took care of me and the house and herself. She was juggling so much.” — is at odds with the many accounts showing that Meghan’s father, Thomas Markle, was very much involved in co-parenting her.

From around the age of 9 and until Meghan left for college, the future Duchess of Sussex lived “full-time” with her father, a lighting designer for “General Hospital,” “Married With Children” and other shows, according to Vanity Fair and the book, “Revenge: Meghan, Harry, and the War Between the Windsors” by author Tom Bower.

Thomas Markle and others say he footed the bill for her private-school education and often was responsible for transporting her to and from school. Meghan also once talked fondly about how her father brought her with him to the studios after school, so she could do her homework while he finished work.

It’s not surprising that Meghan would want to avoid any mention of Thomas Markle in the episode that dropped Tuesday. She famously cut off contact with him after his scandalous last-minute exit from her 2018 royal wedding, and his upsetting need to criticize her in interviews with the U.K. tabloids. Supporters of Meghan see the retired lighting designer as an opportunist who continues to publicly hurt his daughter in his quest for fame.

Moreover, the topic of the episode for Meghan’s female-centered podcast is “Good Wife/Bad Wife, Good Mom/Bad Mom.” It focuses on the roles that women — not men — are expected to play in their homes and families.

Still, Meghan gives her husband, Prince Harry, a shout-out for pitching in to help in the mornings, when she’s “juggling” to get her children, Archie, 3, and Lillibet, 1, awake, dressed, fed and, in Archie’s case, off to pre-school.

In her podcast, Meghan gives no such credit to her father, even though she happily did so in the past. In certain ways, Meghan is like other famous people, particularly in Hollywood, who may be given to omitting uncomfortable details, glossing over timelines and embellishing or even fabricating events in their lives as they build their public personas. Right now, Meghan doesn’t want Thomas Markle anywhere near her public persona.

It’s clear from the things she and others have said, that her father played a key role in shaping her view of herself, and that Doria Ragland got lots of help from him in raising her.

After Thomas Markle and Ragland split up after two years of marriage, “they remained unified in the one child they shared — co-parenting Meghan without much friction, sharing custody and celebrating holidays together,” wrote Meghan’s friendly biographers, Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand, in their book “Finding Freedom.”

While the book asserts that both parents contributed to Meghan’s private-school education, it also said that Thomas Markle played a critical role in Meghan’s development as a feminist. This book and Bower’s “Revenge” describe Thomas Markle as the architect of his daughter’s first important moment of activism at age 11.

That’s when she said she became angry and hurt about seeing a Procter and Gamble TV ad for dishwashing liquid that had the sexist tagline: “Women all over America are fighting greasy pots and pans.” Both books said Thomas Markle encouraged her to write a letter of protest to P&G’s president and letters to then-First Lady Hillary Clinton and Nickelodeon anchor Linda Ellerbee. Bower also said that Thomas Markle used his contacts in Hollywood to get Meghan on Ellerbee’s kids’ news TV show.

After Meghan’s parents broke up, she divided her time between the two, Bower said. On the days when Thomas Markle worked an 18-hour shift, Ragland and her mother cared for Meghan. On the alternate days, Thomas collected Meghan from school, and looked after her every weekend.

Scobie and Durand quoted Ragland’s brother as saying her mother is probably the single most influential person in Meghan’s life. The authors said the mother-daughter bond was forged in the duchess’s childhood. They did yoga together, rode bikes, spent time at home preparing home-cooked dinners and traveling.

“Mother and daughter were always very open with each other, and that did not change once Meghan became an adult,” Scobie and Durand wrote.

Bower is far less generous in assessing Ragland’s role in doing the heavy-lifting as a parent. He wrote that Ragland, in 1986, found it “too difficult” to care for her 5-year-old daughter, so Meghan would spend her afternoons after school with her friend ,Ninaki “Nikki” Priddy, or with her father.

Just before Meghan turned 9 in 1990, Ragland announced that she would need to be away for weeks at a time as she traveled around the country to start a new clothing and jewelry business, Bower reported. At that point, Thomas agreed to take full responsibility for their daughter, and Meghan moved permanently into his home, a large converted barn “in a stylish neighborhood close to Hollywood Boulevard.”

While Meghan lived “full-time” with Thomas Markle for nearly 10 years, according to Vanity Fair and Bower, the father established “a pleasant routine” for the two of them. He dropped Meghan off at school, then at the end of the afternoon, “would either collect her or send a limousine to bring her to the studio while he finished work.”

Before Meghan fell out with her father, she described all the juggling he did to take care of her. In a Father’s Day post on her former website, The Tig, Meghan said she spent her weekends with her father, when he “religiously” took her to Saturday ballet and tap classes even after he worked more than 75 hours during the week. She said they’d always celebrate with a restaurant lunch of club sandwiches and fruit smoothies.

Most of all, Thomas Markle encouraged her interest in acting, volunteering to erect professional lighting for her school productions and giving her advice on how to move on stage or perform for the camera, she and others say. He also took her to the Emmy Awards to walk the red carpet when he was nominated for best lighting director.

“The blood, sweat and tears this man (who came from so little in a small town of Pennsylvania) invested in my future so I could grow up to have so much,” Meghan began in a post on The Tig. “He is the person who believed in this grand dream of mine well before I could see it as a possibility.”